For almost a week now, fires have been raging across Southern
California, affecting the movement of college teams.

Pepperdine's women managed to play at San Diego in WCC action last
Sunday but then couldn't get back home.

Classes at San Diego have since been canceled and the campus used as an
evacuation site. Unable to practice, the Torero women headed to
Portland a day early to prepare for their nationally televised match on
Thursday night.

San Diego State teams have been forced move home games outside the area
-- to Los Angeles and as far away as Provo, Utah.

Then there's San Diego State men's assistant coach Oscar Rodriguez, a
San Diego firefighter who has been battling fires non-stop since last
Sunday.

Pepperdine was playing in San Diego last Sunday when a large fire broke
out in the Malibu community and near
campus. The university was shut down, and the Wave players, unable to
return to
Malibu, stayed at a hotel the first night and then dispersed to stay
with family
and friends before returning for practice on Wednesday.

The Aztec men were training indoors due to the poor air quality outside
before they left Thursday for more training before their game against
Oregon State at UCLA. Friday's game against Washington has been
rescheduled for Nov. 18.

A number of the player's families and an assistant coach were forced to
evacuate, but everybody was believed to be safe.

Rodriguez and former assistant Kyle
Smith, another
San Diego firefighter, have been on the frontlines.

"I spoke with both Oscar and Kyle and they are working
hard to get our county toward recovery," Aztec coach Lev Kirshner said.
"Oscar, Kyle and their co-workers are truly heroes to us all."

The Aztec women's team was forced to move its Thursday home contest
against New Mexico to Provo, Utah, on the BYU campus.

The team left at 8 a.m. Wednesday, arrived in Provo and were down
to business as usual with a 5 p.m. practice. BYU opened up its
athletics dining facilities to the Aztecs where they had breakfast
before Thursday's game against New Mexico that ended in a 0-0 tie.

"Its been a very emotional week for a lot of people and traveling up
here to Provo has been good for us to try and get back to some sense of
normalcy," SDSU women's coach Mike
Friesen said. "We've faced adversity all season long and
today's game will definitely be the case again. We all have heavy
hearts for our family, friends and the people of San Diego that are
going through this terrible tragedy. This experience reinforces what we
tell our players that soccer is a great game that we are able to enjoy,
but it's not life or death."

Originally scheduled for Thursday at San Diego and Sunday at Loyola
Marymount, the recent wildfires have forced the sides to change their
home-and-home series. LMU will now host San Diego on Friday, with the
teams returning to San Diego at 7 p.m. on Monday.